


Kiss Your Knuckles Before You Punch Me In The Face

by Justdateabarricadeboy



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, M/M, hella angst, may or may not be based off of a scene in oitnb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-15
Updated: 2016-04-15
Packaged: 2018-06-02 11:13:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6564001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Justdateabarricadeboy/pseuds/Justdateabarricadeboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras and Grantaire were previously friends with benefits/fuckbuddys with clear romantic feelings for each other, but, since they're both fucking dumbasses, neither of them did anything. After catching R shooting up (heroin) Enjolras is so heartbroken that he can't stand to be with him anymore, he leaves, Grantaire crumbles into a crippling depression. This is pretty much about the crippling depression so if you're looking for happiness and fluff IT'S NOT HERE.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kiss Your Knuckles Before You Punch Me In The Face

**Author's Note:**

> Also like trigger warnings for self harm and other self destructive behaviors, someone ODs and is hospitalized, I suck at doing these... basically Grantaire does a lot of hurtful shit to himself so yeah trigger warnings for that.   
> ALSO quote in the title is from the Front Bottoms' song "Twin Sized Mattress" which is an absolutely fabulous song and the album it is on (Talon of the Hawk) is equally lit and I can just see R listening to it post E breakup.

"I'm leaving," Enjolras's words pierced the thick air of Grantaire's apartment, "me, Courfeyrac, and Combeferre, we're leaving together. Tomorrow."  
"What," said Grantaire, "I... why?"  
"Because we've graduated, there are bigger, better opportunities outside of this lame town, oh and I watched you inject yourself with heroin the other day!!"  
"That was... that was the first time it happened," Grantaire defended, "E, you know me. You know I wouldn't do that."  
"But do I?" the blonde asked, "R we barely talk, how would I know anything? And what am I supposed to expect from..."  
"A deadbeat like me?" Grantaire filled in.  
"No," Enjolras said, "you know I don't think that of you."  
"How would I?" said Grantaire, "when all you do is fuck me when you're angry and horny."  
"R that's not true, I care about you."  
"And I've been in love with you for five years." Enjolras was silent for a while. Grantaire finally broke it: "why are you doing this?"  
"Because I'm sick of this whole watching you destroy yourself and not being able to help thing. I can't watch you fall apart and know I can't help you, it hurts me too much."  
"Why can't you wait for me to be better?"  
"How am I supposed to know when that is when you relapse constantly? It's not worth my time or energy to wait around for someone to just fall off the wagon again... I can't do it anymore."  
"I love you," pleaded Grantaire.  
"I'm sorry."   
And then he left. Apollo became the slam of the door, Grantaire's body stuck in child pose for hours on end, empty bottles of liquor, the slow burning ache in R's heart.  
. . .  
People came to talk to Grantaire: Jehan, Eponine, Cosette, Bahorel, and in the first week he refused to speak. Eventually he became more social: he walked, talked, and ate (barely). But Enjolras was only the first to leave, soon most of his friends were gone too.  
Grantaire felt painfully alone. Everyday hurt, each step hurt, it all hurt. He was sure nothing had hurt him more than Enjolras, and that terrified him. He wanted control over his pain, he wanted to be hurt more than this, and he wanted it to be his own fault.   
And that's how the thing red scars appeared all up his arms, lined with bite and burn marks, with scars from a heroin needle collaged over them, and then finally covered by tattoos. He fell into a spiral of pain and for a while, it made him feel better. He needed the control that it gave him and he loved the way that for a few seconds, the ache in his art subsided and was replaced with the sharp burn in his wrist. But-- to reverse one of the most cheesy and unhelpful things anyone could ever say to a self harmer (permanent scars, temporary sadness)-- this sadness R was experiencing was the permanent type, and temporary scars didn’t do anything at the end of the day. He searched for more intense pain, but there was nothing. Nothing was more painful than this deep depression that he had fallen into. He made a tattoo gun and started giving himself tattoos. He met his dealer at the grocery store, the man, Montparnasse, liked his tattoos and asked for one. He said he’d be happy to pay, and that ended up being with heroin. And that was the real problem: Grantaire had access. His oblivious parents refilled his bank account because they were rich and wanted to give him the time to focus on his art, his dealer threw heroin at him for free. He didn’t have to work. Montparnasse would sleep with him whenever he desired and bring the groceries, and eventually Grantaire stopped leaving the apartment. He stopped stalking Enjolras on FaceBook, he stopped responding to Bahorel’s texts, everything in Grantaire’s world stopped. And he threw himself into his depressive cycle. Montparnasse stopped staying in the apartment at some point, he just left the drugs and left, and finally Grantaire realized he was alone.  
He was alone.  
And no one cared. No one. They had all moved on, they had all moved past him, past their little student revolution, they had jobs and lives and friends and new opportunities. Grantaire had nothing. He felt like moving space, like nothing he did mattered anymore. He didn’t feel the exacto knife tracing his veins; he didn’t feel the tattoo gun digging into his forearm. He just wanted to feel again. He wanted to be hurt again, but nothing hurt him.   
And that’s how he overdosed on heroin. At age 25, two years after the break up, Grantaire woke up thoroughly disoriented in a hospital bed. “Where am I?” he screamed, it echoed through the white walled room.   
“Hey, hey Grantaire,” said a deep voice that R recognized, “you’re in the hospital, you ODed last night. It’s Bahorel.”  
“What,” said Grantaire, astonished, “what… how are you here?”  
“I’m on your emergency contact sheet,” Bahorel answered, “they just said that you’re free to leave.”  
“Am I in trouble?” he asked.  
Bahorel sighed, “not with them.” There was a brief pause, Grantaire could feel the man thinking. “Come on, R, let’s go back to my house.” Grantaire said nothing, but stood up and put on the clothes laid out for him: a pair of black jeans and a green sweater. Everything felt clean.  
They got in the car and Bahorel just drove; they had been best friends at one point, Grantaire felt like there was so much to say, yet he couldn’t bring up any of it. Finally he realized a thank you might be necessary. So, awkwardly, he coughed and said “dude, thanks for picking me up and stuff… you shouldn’t have had to go through that. I’ve been really fucked up, this isn’t your job.”  
Bahorel looked angry, keeping his eyes on the road he snapped, “well whose job is it then?”  
“No one’s,” Grantaire snorted.   
“Grantaire, you need a person,” said Bahorel, “everyone has a person, you need a person.”  
“Well who’s your person?”  
Bahorel smiled and looked at the ground, “well there WAS this guy, my best friend, actually his name was something like… Grantaire. He was great, constantly smiling, walked with a bounce of his step, incredible artist. Oh and his puns, he made the greatest puns. I can’t find him though, he seems sort of lost.”  
Grantaire laughed to push away the tears forming in his eyes, “Well good luck finding him, I heard he misses you a lot.”  
“I missed him.”  
“He’s really sorry.”  
“I was wondering if he’d maybe like to move in with me and get some help with his… everything?”   
Grantaire gave a smile small, “I think he’d like that.”  
Bahorel returned the smile, “okay, but there’s only one condition: you have to start going to AA.”

. . .  
It took a lot of convincing to get Grantaire to walk into the church basement on the first day, but after Bahorel forcing him into the car, Grantaire decided he’d try it. Even then, it took him eleven months to stand up and speak at AA. In that time, Enjolras moved to the city next to them. He started going to Bahorel’s coffee shop, and upon seeing him, Bahorel got fiercely protective of his best friend and began writing snide, passive aggressive comments on Enjolras’s cup:  
“this cup of coffee wasn’t worth my time or energy”  
“why even drink this, it might fall off the wagon and god forbid you waste your time on that sort of loser”  
“this cup of coffee doesn’t want you to drink it because it saw you make one mistake… sorry!!”  
And eventually Enjolras said something, leading Bahorel to tell him Grantaire’s whole story, finally closing with, “but he’s getting better now. He goes to AA and therapy, got through the withdrawal, hasn’t relapsed once in the past eleven months. It’s incredible.”  
Enjolras just nodded, dumbfoundedly because, though he hated to admit it, he had never stopped thinking about his ex. So, when he got home, he googled Grantaire’s AA program and planned to go to the next meeting.  
. . .  
Grantaire shakily took slow steps to the front of the church basement; Enjolras watched from a door in the back. “Hi,” said R, finally, “um I’m Grantaire, I’m gonna be 26 soon and I’ve been clean for eleven months as of yesterday.” This earned him some cheers, he blushed and continued, “um, so I was hospitalized after overdosing on heroin eleven months ago. To this day, I don’t understand what was going on in my life at that time, but I know it was hard. I was going through a break up when I first got addicted. I was obsessed with feeling pain, with feeling things that hurt more than him and it took me to a really bad place. Eventually, it wasn’t even about him anymore, I wasn’t in love with him anymore. I was in love with the drugs and the pain, the pain he put me through. And that terrified me. It all terrifies me to this day.   
“At one point or another, though, I ultimately realized I didn’t need him. It was a breakthrough, and yet it held me back. Because I started to live more freely, but the revelation that it brought about was ‘heroin is better boyfriend than he could ever be,’ that was bad. But true. It’s really true. Because heroin brought me here today. Heroin taught me that I’m ruining my life. Heroin guided me through the bad times and led me to the good. And heroin only fucking left me when he knew I was okay,” at this point they made eye contact and Enjolras realized that R knew he was there, “Heroin gave me a clean break. And now that he’s gone, I don’t miss him because he made it clear that I’m better off. Heroin knew his shit, and the ‘love of my life’ didn’t. Heroin didn’t break my fucking heart so maybe it’s fair for me to love heroin more than him. Maybe it’s fair that I loved the drug that ruined my life more than him. Wanna know why? Because he ruined my life. He came in here and fucked me up. He broke my heart and he left me and he hurt me. So fuck him.”  
Before thinking, Enjolras screamed “fuck you,” and bolted out of the church. Grantaire was left to sit down with a smug grin on his face.  
. . .  
He was playing the guitar at one in the morning when the doorbell rang. In just a pair of green pajama pants, Grantaire ran to answer his door. He found the love of his life standing in the door frame: tall, blonde, greek god like Enjolras in the flesh, and soaking wet. It was pouring rain outside.  
“I,” stuttered Enjolras, “I just… I’m so sorry.”  
“Apology accepted.”  
“I didn’t know… I didn’t know what I was doing and I really thought I was helping you, but I wasn't, I mean of course I wasn’t I fucked you up and I’m so sorry because you deserved so much more and I just tossed you aside and it was wrong. I… I’m sorry.” He had begun to cry, Grantaire could feel his heart softening. “I,” Enjolras started, “I… can I just come in? Please?”  
“Anytime, Apollo,” said Grantaire, pulling the blonde into his arms and falling into his chest, “anytime.”


End file.
